Early Breakfast withRelebogile Mabotja

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has implicated the Gupta family and companies they control in suspicious transactions worth R6.8 billion.

Gordhan was charged by the NPA with fraud for approving early retirement for former SARS employee Ivan Pillay, amidst claims that this charge is politically motivated.

Pieter-Louis Myburgh, investigative journalist from News 24, says Gordhan has approached the courts to make a ruling that will exempt him from intervening in the battle between the banks and Gupta's because the controversial family and their companies have put a lot of pressure on him to intervene as Finance Minister.

In documents presented in court, there is a certificate by the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) which details transactions between 2012 to 2016 that the FIC labels "suspicious".

These transaction were flagged under sections 29 of the Fica Act which looks at issues like the potential funding of terrorism, evasion of tax and transactions that have no apparent business or lawful purpose.

— Pieter-louis Myburgh, Investigative reporter at News24

Myburgh told John Robbie it's is not clear whether the transactions are made up of payments going into Gupta-linked accounts or out of such accounts, or both.

He says a R1.3 billion transaction involving the bank account from the mining rehabilitation fund for Optimum, the coal mine owned by the Gupta's and Duduzane Zuma, was also noted in the report as it might have been used for other purposes other than the rehabilitation of the mine.